In the aftermath of the recent debt crisis, many countries are implementing nonlinear fiscal policy rules, whereby the government’s responsiveness to debt must strengthen at higher levels of debt. This paper examines how a nonlinear fiscal policy rule affects the possibility of future...

We provide evidence on the potential for reforms in labour law to reverse deunionization trends by relating an index of the favorability to unions of Canadian provincial labour relations statutes to changes in provincial union density rates between 1981 and 2012. The results suggest that...

This paper addresses a number of issues about the disposition of the funds generated by the Alberta Specified Gas Emitters Regulation (SGER), focusing on the allocation of funds among three competing broad categories of expenditures: 1. revenue recycling via tax reductions, 2. support for...

This study revisits the sectoral shifts hypothesis for the US for the period 1948 to 2011. A quantile regression approach is employed in order to investigate the asymmetric nature of the relationship between sectoral employment and unemployment. Significant asymmetries emerge. Lilien's...

The global nature of the climate change externality calls for a global response but so far none has emerged. Instead, climate policies are being implemented by subnational and national governments, resulting in a fragmented policy landscape at the national level. This is certainly the case in...

In the literature, central bank communication is identified via either (i) the written content of original communications or (ii) newswire reports. We examine how (i) Bank of Canada communications and (ii) media reporting on them impacts Canadian bond and stock market returns using a GARCH model...

We explain Canadian target rate decisions using macroeconomic variables as well as Bank of Canada (BOC) and Federal Reserve (Fed) communication indicators. Econometrically, we employ an ordered probit model of a Taylor rule to explain and predict 60 target rate decisions between 1998 and 2006....

We examine policy rate recommendations of the Bank of Canada's Governing Council (GC) and its shadow, the C.D. Howe Institute's Monetary Policy Council (MPC). Individual recommendations of the MPC are observed but not those of the GC. Differences in the two committee's recommendations are small...

We study the correlation between pairs of bond and stock markets in Canada and the United States between January 1998 and December 2009 in the framework of diagonal-BEKK models. Our research question is whether monetary policy actions and communications by the Bank of Canada and the Federal...